My Thoughtful Spot

Outdoor Hour Challenge: Autumn Series - Oaks and Acorns

This week's challenge was to observe an oak tree. My friend Kari and I brought our children to Stanley Park, where we found two large oak trees right in front of the park rest rooms. We took a nice nature walk anyway.

 

It was a beautiful crisp fall day.

I made the older kids stop to pose for me.

We collected leaves and acorns along the way. I found a juicy worm while picking up acorns.

 
  

We didn't spend much time observing the oak trees and we didn't ask the questions found in The Handbook of Nature Study because we had two one-year-olds with us who were very interested in all of the dogs crossing our path, and some of the kids couldn't wait to get to the playground.

Here's a leaf and acorn that I brought home with me. I believe it belonged to a white oak tree. 

In the library parking lot this week, the sky was falling. I picked up one of these ball shaped objects and a couple of leaves that seemed to come from the ball-dropping tree.

Using the Internet, I identified this as a nut from a Black Walnut Tree. Then I read Barb's oak tree post and wondered if this could be an oak gall. I'm leaning towards my first idea because I read that the black walnut fruit falls in October, which is just what it was doing. It even bonked the roof of our van.

You know, we didn't need to go far to find an oak tree. I discovered this morning, that the border of our backyard is lined with them.

I also discovered, that the hand-me-down jeans Hannah was wearing have a cute little saying on them.

 
 
This afternoon, Worker and I tried leaf printing using stamp pads.

I was very happy with how mine turned out. Worker was happy too. Then he experimented with rubbing the stamp pad all over his paper, and we sketched our leaves and acorns on our notebook pages.

 

Next we plan to identify the different types of oak leaves we collected using an old field guide I found at a used book sale.  I look forward to next week's challenge - pumpkins.
 
   

Found Dagobah, You Have. Train, You Must.

My friend Kari had a cool Star Wars themed birthday party last Saturday for her son, Austin, who turned 7 today. Happy Birthday Austin! The kids had a great time rescuing Princess Leia, going through Jedi Training, receiving their robes, busting up the Death Star pinata, meeting Chewy, defeating Darth Vader, drinking Yoda Sodas and more. Like I said, it was cool.

 

7 Quick Takes Friday

 

1.  I know it's Saturday, but I started this post yesterday, and I just have to finish it. Last night I went to Bobby's office to make copies and do some uninterrupted homeschool planning. I brought this with me. I was out late.

2.  This was a busy week. There was a tupperware party at my home on Monday night. My friend Kari is selling it now. I will be getting this for Bobby

 

and this for me

 

with Passion (red) seals.

3.  Tuesday was the junior golf end-of-year party. My father played golf with Bobby, our nephews and Worker, Snuggler and Helper. Worker's number was called first in the raffle.

 

4.  On Thursday the kids and I met my friend Manda (and her two children) at Old Sturbridge Village. Here are the kids - youngest to oldest.

 

5.  Yesterday we visited my grandmother,

attended the Mom's Bible Study (where we talked about loads of other topics while the kids played),

 then I brought some kids to get haircuts. Hannah had her first. It wasn't planned, but the camera was in the diaper bag, so why not?

  

6.  Today we'll be driving to Marlboro, MA to visit my grandmother's sister at the convent where she lives. I've never done this before without my mother. I feel like a grownup.

7. Two more days until our new school year begins. I may actually start writing some short blog posts soon. I'm working on my rule. (I'll post on that soon.) I've got to go tidy the house, make the meal plan and food list, and do some 24 piece puzzles with a cute little girl.

 

 

 

A Day at the Park

I forgot to pull out the camera for the flowers, the waterfall, the swans, the ducks, the lily pads and the turtle, but Hannah with dabs of sunscreen was picture worthy.

 

I like to go to the park in the spring before the schools are out. It's so peaceful there. We met my friend Kari and her two children for a walk, playing together, good conversation and a picnic lunch. It was a little chillier than I had expected. Here are some of the photos I took.

 

 

 

Worker? Where did you go?

 

Ah... there you are!

 

Worker took this photo of Snuggler minus part of his arm.

 

I've been taking far too many blurry photos of sisters on swings. They're just so cute!

Here's one in our own backyard.

 

We're Going on an Egg Hunt

Thinking Aloud, Nothing Important

The wind is whipping. It's in the 40's, and it's supposed to rain today. It's quite a change from some of the days we had last week. The sun was out, along with some neighbors I haven't seen since the fall. There were frisbees, lightsabers and kids on our street. Sure signs of spring. Bobby cleaned out the garage on Saturday. After a busy weekend, I'm trying to get the house back in order and plow through a mountain of laundry. I'm considering changing my four days a week laundry schedule to a Monday through Saturday one. I know you were probably hoping for something more exciting since I haven't blogged in a week, but I'm in journaling mode right now. This is what's on my mind. Today's plan (when school is finished) is to go through everyone's potential spring clothes. Tonight Hannah and I will take a trip to the mall with my sister. I want to return the spring clothes I ordered online for myself from Lands End. I measured and followed the size chart, but everything is too big.

Speaking of too big clothing... although I have lost weight, I have fallen away from working out. I just couldn't get into going to the Y this winter. And that stretch of time between Superbowl Sunday and Lent was a very dark time for eating well. But now spring is here. It's a season of renewal. I think I'm going to do the old running program again. I may even start it at Week 5 this time.

Snuggler has joined a baseball team and is playing the sport for the first time ever. He has practices on Wednesdays and Fridays. My friend Kari and I have started a book club (of which we are the only members) to discuss the book A Mother's Rule of Life. We had our first meeting last Saturday afternoon at Dunkin Donuts. We spent some of the time discussing homeschooling curriculum because I'm already thinking about next year. I decided after our meeting that this week's focus will be on: early to bed, early to rise, prayer and drinking water. It's a very fine place to start. (I love that line from The Sound of Music.)

It's time for me to go. I hope you are enjoying the beginning of spring.

Presidents' Day Weekend 2009

Our family finished off this cookie Bobby gave me, along with a little help from Grandma.

We also finished The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. I LOVED it. It made me laugh quite a bit. Susan Denaker's voices made me chuckle. Did you know that the third Penderwicks book is in the works? And that Jeanne Birdsall plans to write five altogether? And that she lives in Northampton, MA? That's not far from us. (Although it really doesn't matter. It's not like we're going to visit her.) I read on her website that she loosely based Cameron on Amherst, Massachusetts and that Antonio's Pizza does indeed make the best pizza in the universe. (Field trip idea!)

Now there was one line in the book that Bobby and I laughed at, then wondered about. POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT! It was when someone said she was planning on dating someone when she was thirteen. And then she asked a parental someone if he thought it was a good idea, and he said it was the best. It sounded ridiculous to me, who started dating at nineteen. But even Bobby, who dated in elementary school, thought the idea was crazy. I guess we are still just parents of young children.

We kicked off this long weekend with a mystery lunch. Without telling the kids where we were going, I drove us to surprise #1... a bowling alley parking lot. Then to the van came surprise #2... Bobby! Then we met surprise #3... their friend Austin (and my friend Kari and little Addison). We had a great time.

Friday night was a pizza and games night at our home with Fr. Michael and six friends we met from our parish's Pre-Cana team. We ended up playing Cranium once (the ladies won, as usual). We mostly enjoyed talking with everyone about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The kids had a double feature movie night at my father's house on Saturday night. Bobby and I have been watching St.John Bosco and Oliver Twist. Bobby was the first to recognize that Fagin was played by Wormtail. What kind of Harry Potter fan am I? 

Sunday morning, we went to 9:00 Mass and donuts afterwards with my Mom. Tonight my Mom is having a sleepover with Helper, Sweet Pea and their cousin Abigail. The girls are excited. I think my father is going to watch the boys so that Bobby and I can go on a date with Hannah. A date! Woo Hoo!

My plans for today are to purge and organize my dumping station bedroom closet, my desk in the kitchen and the monster hot spot schoolroom. I'm also going to do laundry, take care of five kids, and hang out with Bobby, who's presently sleeping-in.

Lastly, I'm going to be limiting my computer time, so my blogging might be slowing down a bit.  On the other hand, I may be able to write a post more quickly if I do it when I'm alone instead of surrounded by the kids as I am this morning. I've been "interrupted" more times than I can count. I'm once again focusing on my rule. My main distractions are books, movies, phone calls and, you guessed it, the computer.

Just One Little Post

I'm really in the mood to blog today, but because Hannah is napping right now, I'm going to try to get the schoolroom cleaned up and ready to go on Monday. I may be procrastinating in doing this one little post.

We spent some of New Year's Day visiting my friend Manda and her family.

 

I met Manda on my first day of high school in French 1, and she's been a great friend to me.  She lives approximately one hour away and usually she comes to my home because I use the I'm-pregnant-and-I'm-too-tired-to-drive-that-far excuse.  Yesterday there were no excuses, and I let Bobby drive.

This morning I updated the calendar in the schoolroom.

  

I completely forgot that today was First Friday.  Well, it's time to get back to work.  That's if Sweet Pea will let me.   

Nesting and Resting (and pregnancy update)

I thought about calling this post "Mood Swings".  Emotionally, I've been all over the place this week. 

Monday I decided that the whole house needed to be picked up.  I didn't care if it wasn't clean.  I just wanted everything back into its proper place.  Being out so much last week and the long, fun holiday weekend left the house in shambles.  I managed to pick up the whole downstairs and the girls room.  Not bad.  But I couldn't move too well that night.

Tuesday I had an NST and an OB/GYN appt.  In the afternoon my father took the kids swimming at his house during Sweet Pea's long nap.  I had an hour an a half to myself and do you know what I did?  I sat.  I didn't read, or go online, or sleep, or do housework.  I sat and rested.  Then Sweet Pea and I went to my father's house for dinner.

I have an induction booked for July 15th at 7:30 am.  It doesn't mean it's going to happen though.  I think these are the reasons my doctor suggested it:

• he doesn't want patients with gestational diabetes to go past their due date (7/24 for me)
• he will be gone away from 7/18 to 7/28
• I tested positive for Strep B, so they would like to have time to give me the antibiotics

I can't think of any other reasons right now.  He asked me to book the appointment and said I can back out if I decide to.  I think that the pro side of induction is that I could plan on who will take care of the kids and I can stop spending hours a week on doctor's appointments.  But on the other hand....

On Tuesday the 15th, the kids have junior golf and Bobby's trying to close on some property that he wants to purchase.  Also, I'm the kind of person who would wait four weeks to have a natural miscarriage, so I can probably wait two more weeks for this baby.

The doctor also said that I was 3 cm dialated and 50% effaced and that I could go any time.  Maybe that's why I was a nut on Wednesday.  I woke up seeing all the dirt in the cracks.  More specifically, I was noticing the brown handprints on doorways and switchplates and the small clusters of ants piled on crumbs left on the living room and kitchen floors and the crud in my shower.  So I cleaned and I vacuumed. The kids really wanted to go to the library.  I told them we'd go after we finished picking up the boys' room.  Well, after about an hour of picking up, threatening, yelling and tears, I realized that we just weren't going to finish the boys room. It was that bad.

Thank God that we can start the day over anytime.  This time happened to be a little bit past lunch.  So I took everyone to Wendy's and then to the library.  We even got to see Bobby for a few minutes.  He came to the library to get his umbrella out of the van.  After a nap, I finished the boys room myself.  I worked on the schoolroom, the baskets of stuff that was misplaced, made dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, did all of the laundry and threw out a big black bag of "stuff".

Today, following this week's pattern, I went to the doctor's, then came home and sat and rested.  This time with my friend Kari.  My father took the kids swimming again and I did nothing much again.  Then Sweet Pea and I went over for pizza at dinner time and we all went out for ice cream!

If you made it through this detailed post, please tell me it's the hormones. 

It's too bad that the USB cable is in the room where Sweet Pea is sleeping, because if it wasn't, then I could have posted pictures of the boys room and you might have been able to see why I freaked out.  I guess there's always tomorrow.  But for now, I'm going to go to sleep listening to my rosary CD.  Good Night. 

This Week (in bullet form)

I'm going out a lot this week.  I may be preparing for the staying home a lot that is coming soon.

• OB/GYN appt. -  I didn't know it was going to include an internal and a Strep B culture.  The boys were happy to sit in the hallway with their sketch pads.  The girls quietly shared a chair in the office with me.  So it worked out OK.  But I'm getting a sitter next time.
• Non-stress test.  I'm going to the hospital different ways.  I think I know which way we'll go when I'm in labor.  It's going to take about 22 minutes, unless it's the middle of the night and/or Bobby goes over the speed limit.
• The water park.
• My mother's for breakfast.  We saw my grandmother and her sister, and my sister and her children, and my mother obviously.
• My father's to swim.
• The BPP (ultrasound) and an estimate of the baby's weight.  6 pounds and 14 ounces.  71st percentile, which they said was perfect.  Not too big and not too small.
• Staples - for cardstock paper, double-sided tape, photo paper to print out these DaVinci's and some colored pencils.   
• The library - lots of raffle tickets for the Summer Reading program.
• Tomorrow we plan to go to my Uncle Pete's house for a July 4th picnic.
• Saturday afternoon and evening, I'll be at Bobby's office, hopefully wrapping up my homeschool planning and preparation for the 2008-2009 year.  My sister and my friend Kari will join me.  They'll be scrapbooking.